The plight of Kiwi mountain climber Rob Hall, who died in an ill-fated mission to scale Mt Everest in 1996, is set to be played out on the silver screen - with Hollywood star Christian Bale playing the New Zealander.

The climbing guide died alongside a fellow guide and two clients while leading an expedition to the mountain's summit.

Delays - including due to bottlenecks because of so many other climbers attempting the peak - hampered the expedition before one client, Doug Hansen, ran out of supplementary oxygen about 15 hours into the climb.

Hall stayed behind to look after Hansen, but a blizzard hit the mountain, killing them and another guide who had climbed up with extra oxygen.

Entertainment website Deadline Hollywood reports film companies Universal Pictures and Working Title are working with Emmett/Furla Films on Everest, which will be directed by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur.

His previous directing credits include 2012's The Deep, which tells the story of the only survivor of an Icelandic fishing vessel capsize in 1984, and Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg.

The website reports Batman actor Bale is in early talks to star as Hall in Everest.

A second film, also called Everest, is being planned by Sony Pictures, starring Tom Hardy - who clashed with Bale in last year's Batman film The Dark Knight Rises - as Sir George Mallory in his attempt to be the first to reach Everest's summit in the 1920s.